It Happened Here--The Battle of Minisink Ford
Part 1--The Sack of Peenpack and Machaghkamik  

Mid summer 1779, Mohawk Joseph Brant was on the warpath again with his "Volunteers".  On this raid Brant's irregulars numbered about sixty  (mostly Mohawk, Seneca and some Tuscarora)  Indians and twenty seven Tories disguised as Indians. As in the previous year Brant's objective was to terrorize rebel farmers on the frontier,  disrupt their farming operations which provided food for the rebel armies, and provide food and captured supplies for his own troop and perhaps even his home base at Fort Niagara.  Like privateers in a maritime war, given legitimacy through a Letter of Marque*, Brant's Volunteers acted under the official sanction of His Majesty's Government,  but operated semi-independently; they received some military supplies but were not paid by the Crown. Many of Brant's Loyalist Volunteers were hardened frontier farmers who had been hounded to sign loyalty oaths to rebel governments by local Committees of Safety,  had lost their farms when they refused and perhaps been imprisoned for periods of time and even tarred and feathered before fleeing or being expelled by their local communities.  Unwilling or unable to submit to the discipline and constraints of regular army life in a King's Ranger or Loyal American regiment they gravitated to the charismatic Brant to satisfy their need for revenge.

The Minisink Valley (today known as the Upper Delaware Valley, at the intersection of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) was chosen by Brant because of the relative prosperity of the farms there and because attacking there would avoid strong rebel forces that had been operating both north and south of the Mohawk Valley where Brant and other Tory raiders had been so successful the previous year.  A rebel army had recently attacked the Onondaga Nation burning many of its villages,  and another large force was known to be gathering at Otsego Lake.

Small parties of marauding Indians had been attacking isolated farms early in the year,  throughout the frontier, like the Bevier's and Sax's on Fantinekill Creek (May 4, 1779), bringing back intelligence. There had  been indications that preparations were being made in the Wyoming/Susquehanna valley for a rebel attack up the Susquehanna River into the heart of the Iroquois homeland. An attack of the Minisink settlements might divert rebel attention/resources to defense of that area.

U.S. Route 209, north of Ellenville

The 2nd N.Y. Continental Regiment had camped            along the Neversink River on their way to join the Sullivan Campaign in May, that year.  
--Neversink Dr., Port Jervis

U.S. Rte. 209, Town of Deerpark

Flowing into the Minisink (Delaware) River was the Neversink River.  Along the upper reaches of the Neversink was the settlement of Peenpack;  Along its lower reaches, and to the west was the settlement of Machaghkamik or Minisink.

U.S. Rte 6 and 209, Port Jervis

Down from Fort Niagara  Brant and his Volunteers came, through the heart of Iroquoia;
down past Ouaquaga,**  Brant's former base that the rebels had burned the previous October when his Volunteers were out attacking the Minisink Valley for the first time; down the Susquehanna; across to the Delaware; down the Delaware to the Mongap River a few miles from Machagkamik/Minisink; along the old Peenpack trail; out into the Neversink valley


       

Rte 209 and Peenpack Trail, Deerpark

The details of the raid  are fragmentary and contradictory from one narrative to the next. One of the better accounts may be from Joseph Brant , himself, in a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Mason Bolton,  post commander of Fort Niagara 7/29/1779.         "...(I) was a good deal disappointed that I could not get into that place (the settlements) at the time I wished to, a little before day; instead of which I did not arrive  'till  noon, when all the cattle was in the Woods (out grazing) so we cou'd get but a few of them.  We have burnt all the settlement called Minisink,  one Fort excepted, round which we lay before, about an hour, & had one man Killed & one wounded.  We destroyed several small stockaded Forts, and took four Scalps & three Prisoners; but did not in the least injure Women or Children.  The reason that we could not take more of them, was owing to the many Forts about the Place (fortified houses with stockades around them) into which they were always ready to run like ground Hogs."

Ft, Gumaer at Peenpack fought off Brant --Rte 209 Deerpark

Militia Colonel John Hathorn in his official report to Governor Clinton on July 27,1779*** described the settlements' losses:
        "they Burnt Major Deckers House and Barn Samuel Davis's House Barn & Mill Jacobus Van Vlecks House .                                    & Barn, Daniel Vanokers Barn. here was Two Indians Killed from a Little Fort round the house--which was                                    Saved, Esquire Cuykindall's house and Barn,  Mertinus Deckers Fort, house, Barn and Saw Mills                   
        and Nehmiah Pattersons Saw Mill.  Killed & Scalped Jerimiah Vanoker Daniel Cole Ephraim Ferguson  &                
        one Travern.  took with them Several Prisoners, most Children with a great Number of Horses Cattle, & Valuable
         Plunder.  some Cattle were resqued and returned to the owners..."

                                                             



     (described as Vanoker's)

                                                                                                         
           
(Jacobus  Van Vleck's  ?)                                                     









                 
               Indian Raid                                                                  Indian Raid
     Tavern & Home of Peter                                             Grist Mill on this Stream
      Kuykendall, Justice of                                                Built by Salomon Davis
      the Peace, 1731-1743                                              About 1730, was Burned in
   Burned by Brant's Raiders .                                                   Brant Raid
         July 20, 1779                                                                  July 20, 1779

   (Esquire Cuykindall's)                                                        (Samuel Davis'  ?   )       


              Indian Raid                                                              Indian Raid
    House and Barn of Simon                                      Maghaghkamik Church, built
        Westfall on this Site                                               1743 on this site was
   Burned by Brant's Mohawks                                    Burned in raid by Joseph
       and Tories July 20, 1779                                    Brant's Mohawks and Tories
   --S. Maple Ave, Port Jervis                                               July 20, 1779
                                                                         --St,Mary's Ch. Cemetery, Rte 6, Port Jervis

Lt. Col.Wisner summarized the losses in a letter to General Sullivan on July 28,1779: "(Brant's attack) killed 4 men, took 15 prisoners, burnt 10 dwelling houses, one church, 12 barns and one grist mill, a large quantity of hay and grain, took a great quantity of horses and cattle, and much other plunder."
In addition to official correspondence,  letters, and newspaper reports, stories passed down in families reveal the personal experiences of settlers who endured the raid, though different versions often contradict one another in details.                                                James Swartwout was visiting the Van Etten forge when the Indians appeared.  While  the Van Etten family escaped, James hid in the large chimney flue above the forge hearth, and the Van Etten's  slave, "Pompey" met the raiders. (Although some African Americans had supported the Revolution since it beginnings, at this time, in the North, Indian raiders often assumed  Blacks to be non-combatants and with no bounty paid on black scalps, and little value placed on them as hostages for exchange for Loyalist prisoners,  Blacks were likely to be ignored.)  As some of the Indians set fire to the house and barn, and other raiders looked around the forge for portable plunder,  one Indian absent-mindedly or playfully started to pump the forge's bellows. "Pompey" quickly distracted him, saving Swartwout from being asphyxiated or cooked alive!  (Other versions of the story have the blacksmith Van Etten hiding in the chimney or the event, itself, taking place in Brant's first raid in 1778.)                                                                                                                                   

Neversink Drive and Painted Apron Terrace

A famous incident is said to have occurred at the Black Rock School in the Neversink settlement.
As the raiders approached, the teacher, Jeremiah Van Auken, was tomahawked as he (version 1) ran to head off the Indians before they could enter the school or (version 2) as he abandoned his charges and attempted to flee. A couple of  children were (or were not) tomahawked.  Joseph Brant interceded, taking a brush and a pot of paint to place "a mark," a "totem" or a "Masonic symbol" on the aprons and dresses of the girl children, telling his men that the marked children should be left alone, while they attempted to round up the boys as captives. The Indians were largely unsuccessful, as apparently only two (actually boys from the area--not pupils) were taken.  The girls saved several of the boys by hiding them under their painted aprons or dresses. As with the incident at the forge, there is confusion as to when this occurred. It would seem more likely  the school would be in session in the Fall (ie. October 1778)  than in mid-summer  when the raid of July 1779 occurred..


















Both sides put a premium on capturing prominent enemy leaders. Major Johannes Decker, head of the Orange county militia was of special interest to Joseph Brant's raiders.  On the morning of July 20th, Major Decker was returning from a funeral when the raiders attacked and burned his house.  Having missed him, initially, they set an ambush for him when he returned.  Realizing his peril, Decker galloped through the ambushers amid a hail of musket fire.  He was wounded in his side and bleeding, but managed to escape. When his horse became entangled in the branches of a fallen tree the Colonel ran into the woods on foot. According to one source he managed to escape by hiding in a hole. According to another, he made his way to an abandoned wolf's den he had discovered while hunting. One version dramatically describes how he held his breath as an Indian peered into the cave's darkness, so close he could see glint of his eyes, while Decker clutched his jackknife, ready to slash his pursuer's throat if he was discovered.  Decker escaped discovery.

127 West Main St, Port Jervis

The raiders torched the Maghagkamik 
Church before turning west and burning the stockaded house of Martinus Decker, the sole structure from the period of the raid that survives today. (Fourteen years after the attack, the house was rebuilt from its burned out stone shell.)








 The depth of mutual animosity between Tory volunteer and patriot homesteader was intense, as evidenced by some of the stories that were passed down. Supposedly, during the burning of one of the Decker homes (wether Martinus' or Major Johannes' is unclear) an Indian approached the cradle of an infant of a family sheltering there, with the intention of killing it. But, when he reached for the baby it smiled at him and the warrior was unable to kill it. A Tory, disguised as an Indian, who the settlers recognized as "Daniel Cole" or "Cornelius Cole" rebuked the Indian, "Is your heart too tender for your work?" and taking the child by the heels, swung its head into a doorpost, killing it. The fact that the child or its family remains unidentified in the story along with Brant's assertion that they "did not in the least injure women or children" throw some doubt on the story's authenticity but the fact it was created and attached to the name of a particular Tory, shows the intensity of hatred between rebel families and their former Tory neighbors.

205 East Main, Port Jervis 
The Cole family were early settlers in the area. Cole's Fort in addition to being a place of refuge in the French and Indian War was a center for defense of the upper Delaware in the Revolution. Pulaski"s  Cavalry Legion and support infantry were quartered here in 1778 until they were transferred to the war in South Carolina and the 2nd New York Regiment was headquartered here until it was sent to Easton in the early summer of 1779. Colonel Hathorn reported another "Daniel Cole" "killed and scalped" in the raid; Samuel Cole was Captain of the 3d Regiment, Orange Co. Militia at the Battle.

Their work completed, Brant's Volunteers retreated with their plunder and prisoners, driving their captured horses and cattle before them, up along the Delaware.  They moved quickly for they expected Rebel forces would be in hot pursuit. Next  Time:  Part 2--The Battle in a "Howling Wilderness."




Marker of the Week--   Actually, That would be Uncle George!

Though most of the above is true enough, the last line is not. (Note the attempt at correction.) While Dewitt Clinton was one of New York's most famous governors, having promoted and overseen the building of the Erie Canal, he was the sixth, not the first New York State governor.(1817-23, 1825-28).   Uncle George was the first. (1777-1785, 1801-05) and served as Vice President (1805-12).  But then, New York suffers from no shortage of famous Clintons. During the Revolution, George also serving as Brigadier General of the New York Militia, would be joined by his brother James Clinton, serving as Brigadier General in the Continental Army to defend the Hudson Highlands (at forts Montgomery and Clinton) against a British attack headed by Sir Henry (no relation) Clinton.  Even today there are a couple of famous Clintons living in Chappaqua, New York.


*"Letters of Marque" were issued by governments authorizing individuals to outfit ships to prey on vessels sailing under the flag of a declared enemy. From the 16th to the early 19th century privateering was an accepted practice. Essentially operating as private contractors, privateers generally didn't receive any support or provisioning by the governments that authorized them, but they were encouraged to make war (mainly) on an enemy's commercial shipping and could keep any ships and cargoes they managed to capture.

**See  8/7/2016  It Happened Here--The Lost Towns of the Revolution
***This report was lost until 1973 and presumed destroyed in the New York State Library fire of 1911. It was discovered in the Draper Manuscripts of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin by Vernon Leslie.

It Happened Here--The Judge's Youngest Brother Visits  

                 

  William Crane was a pillar of the community in Port Jervis, New York in the 1890's. A prominent lawyer, the sobriquet of "judge" had stuck with him though he had served but one year as a temporary judge for Orange County.  In 1891 his brother Stephen came for what would be several extended visits.

 Born in Newark, N.J., Stephen was the youngest of fourteen Crane children.  Four of Stephen's  siblings closest in age to him had died in their infancy so there was a large gap in age between the youngest Crane and his surviving brothers and sisters, who often served more as mentors and parents than peers. His sister Agnes, fifteen years his seniors, was largely responsible for his early upbringing and education, and first stirred his interest in writing and self-expression. The Cranes' father, Rev. Jonathan Townley Crane who became the pastor of the large Drew Methodist Church of Port Jervis was consumed by church business as was his mother in the Women's Christian Temperance Union and various church charities and other church functions. Reverend Crane died suddenly when Stephen was eight.

Stephen's brother Edmund became his caretaker, taking him to Hartwood New York. Later his mother moved to the Methodist community of Ashbury Park, N.J. enrolling him in the Ashbury Park School and two years later Pennington Seminary.  Stephen rebelled against the seminary's strict behavioral code. He  declared he wanted to pursue a military career and prepare for West Point.

Rt.9H Claverack

His family next enrolled him in Claverack College, a combination quasi-military-college preparatory school and junior college, also affiliated with the Methodist church. By now, a teenager in full rebellion, the youngest Crane was at loggerheads with a school administration  that promoted a highly structured classical education, that discounted creativity; one that promoted strict  Methodist behavioral standards.  Though he excelled at military drill and exercises, and participated in literary societies, he hated his courses and would often stay up late (smoking and playing poker),  then sleeping in and

Last surviving building on Claverack College campus*

missing his classes. After two and a half years the young scholar was still a freshman!

The family, being at wit's ends, brother William intervened.  William Crane, who was something of an amateur historian had enchanted young Stephen with stories of the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.  Stephen's Uncle, Wilbur Fisk Peck had been an army surgeon's assistant and had become the head of the Army hospital at Yorktown, though the experience had left him a shattered man and an alcoholic. Stephen carried Uncle Wilbur's sword in military exercises at Claverack.  So it was left to William to express to Stephen a belief that another war was not likely in Stephen's lifetime and consequently, opportunities for military distinction and advancement would be unlikely for someone pursuing a military career.  Much of the Crane family's wealth had come from shares of Pennsylvania coal stock.  Perhaps he should consider a career in mining engineering!

In 1890 Stephen was off to the mining-engineering program at Lafayette College in Easton, PA.  Lafayette, like all of his previous educational experiences was church-rooted--in this case Presbyterian, not Methodist, with bible study and daily chapel attendance required. It featured a fixed four year program, that allowed no elective courses. It didn't take long for Stephen to realize he had probably jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The first semester he took seven courses and failed five of them.  His worst grade was in "Theme Writing"  (a Zero!)  Being an engineering program, students enrolled in it were required to write on assigned technical subjects using specialized jargon.  Stephen wasn't interested.

The realization that her son was not cut out to be a mining engineer led Stephen's mother to seek a place for him at Syracuse University. Because her wayward son had attended Claverack, one of the University's preferred  college preparatory schools, and because Stephen's grand-uncle was Bishop Jesse T. Peck, one of the University's founders, Mrs. Crane pulled some strings and got him admitted with a scholarship.  She even arranged for him to board at the Bishop's widow's residence.  Stephen probably agreed only because Syracuse had a good baseball team;  he was passionate about baseball and an excellent catcher in his own right.  His housing arrangement lasted only a few days before the Bishop's wife and the rebellious, unconventional Crane mutually agreed to part company. While at Lafayette, Stephen had pledged at Delta Upsilon fraternity and soon found lodgings at the DU house on the Syracuse Campus.  There he became something of a leader of his fraternity's rebels, occupying an unused, unheated  cupola in the fraternity house to smoke, play cards and sing bawdy drinking songs, with his new friends.  Crane took courses mainly in history and literature that he thought would interest him, and did not follow a degree program.  As one semester turned into two semesters Stephen spent more and more time writing stories, beginning a novel  Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and often going out into the streets to observe people. By the third semester he failed to register for a single course.   For  a few summers he had worked for his brother Townley as a reporter hustling up leads and stories for him along the Jersey shore summer communities, for Townley's news service that provided copy for several large and small newspapers.  When one of his professors confronted Stephen about his lack of interest in academics, and Stephen confessed he was more interested in writing and journalism, Professor Little offered to try to get him a reporter's job. Stephen started as the Syracuse correspondent for the New York Tribune, and soon he was frequenting the police courts, tenements and red light district of Syracuse.  By the end of his Spring semester Crane would inscribe on the wall of his fraternity house cupola 'Sunset--1891--May--Steph. Crane'.

Summer 1891 would begin a period where Stephen would divide  his time between visiting his brother Edmund, in Hartwood, and camping with family in rural Sullivan county; staying with brother William in Port Jervis; and living a bohemian lifestyle with other artists, on the edge of the Bowery in NY City. There he would continuing gathering material for, and revising and polishing "Maggie."  From his experiences in the country would emerge several short stories, several published at the time and posthumously collected into Stephen Crane:  Sullivan County Tales and Sketches.

After experiencing frustration at getting "Maggie" published**, Crane was at a friend's in New York and considering writing a civil war pulp fiction/action story or novel to get some quick cash.  (A new generation of readers was discovering the civil war  as both a subject of romantic/action fiction, and as a more serious historical object. )  As he poured over a stack of Century Magazines containing a series on "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War"*** he realized they all focused on what happened and what their main actors said and did,  not what their participants thought and felt and how they were effected by events.  The germ of the idea for Crane's greatest novel, the one that would make him famous, was born.

Port Jervis would be the source of several of the images and insights that Stephen would be incorporated into his stories and novels.  Orange Square is a small city park, diagonally across from the Drew Methodist Church.  The summer before his father died, Stephen witnessed a catastrophic accident. Two black Civil War veterans of the U.S. Colored Volunteer Heavy Artillery  were readying a cannon for the start of the annual Forth of July celebration.  Suddenly a horrific fireball blew the two artillerymen across the park. One died shortly; the other survived with the features of his face largely blasted away and charred, with but one staring eye intact--a terrible memory for an eight year old boy to carry with him. In 1892 a second incident would occur across from William's house, days before Stephen's return from a sojourn doing correspondent work on the Jersey shore. A black man, falsely  accused of raping a  woman was hanged twice by a mob of some 2000.  William and a few others had tried in vain to stop the hanging.  He had given a deposition at the inquest. Stephen would have learned all about it from his brother, and Tribune articles when he returned. Undoubtedly he participated in many conversations about human nature, prejudice, fear and mob violence. Five years later the emotional freight of these two incidents would appear in Crane's "The Monster".

In 1886 Orange Square received a monument dedicated to Civil War veterans.  It became a focal point for Fourth of July celebrants and veterans, principal among them, veterans of the 124th New York State Volunteer Regiment raised in Sullivan and Orange Counties, nicknamed the "Orange Blossoms".  After Crane had decided to write something about the Civil War he began to frequent the park to talk to veterans about their experiences. They quickly disabused him from any lingering notions of inherent glory in combat he may have had,  but they also galvanized him into returning to William's house to write a first draft of The Red Badge  of Courage.

The Red Badge of Courage would catapult Stephen Crane into literary fame.  His desire to experience life close to the characters he was attempting to create would lead him to a life of hardship and adventure the next few years: sailing with "filibusters" trying to aid the Cuban revolutionaries, being shipwrecked in an open boat, attempting to reach the Greco-Turkish War, reporting on the Spanish American War  and charging up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders.  In seven years of writing he would produce five novels, two novellas, two collections of poetry, over 200 stories and sketches and dozens of newspaper reports. But Crane's "strenuous  life" along with heavy smoking would have consequences for the slight-built author.  By the summer of 1900 Crane would be dead of tuberculosis, at age 28.

*For years, a private residence, this building, built in 1869, was  owned by Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin and is up for sale as of 7/1/19--asking price $1.7 million. 
**Popular themes were either of the downtrodden girl with a heart of gold saved by the wealthy hero, or moralistic tales of wanton girls eventually brought down by the wages of sin. "Maggie" was neither of these, but instead a naturalistic unblinking look into life in the Bowery. Eventually, Stephen would self-publish his novella, using his inheritance from his mother's estate. To Crane's great disappointment, it would go largely unnoticed.
***Ulysses Grant contributed  to this series and it would launch him on his life's final project as an autobiographer.  See
NYSHM:  It Happened Here--Ulysses S. Grant on Horses, Smoking, Dying and Determination   7/ 9/18. 

In addition to the usual Wikipedia/ online sources, Paul Sorrentino's Stephen Crane, A Life of Fire. Cambridge, MA. 2014. is readable and multifaceted.


Marker(s) of the Week--   First things First!

Rte. 23, Windham

Sometimes among the first early settlers on the frontier were people of extremely limited resources. For these hearty souls getting their first crops into the ground and harvesting them so they would have food superseded all other needs including building a decent home.  A few NYSHMs suggest to us  the precarious nature of their existence.

Rte. 7, Duanesburg